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Boiled Turkey Stuffed with Celery
Wash half a head of celery, chop it very fine, mix four heaping tablespoonfuls of stale breadcrumbs with it, add one and one-half tablespoonfuls of salt, one-half teaspoonful of pepper, two ounces of warmed butter and two beaten eggs, and stir all together until thoroughly mixed. Stuff the turkey with the mixture, sew up the openings and truss it. Rinse a cloth in cold water, wring it out and dredge it with flour. Wrap the turkey in a cloth, tying it securely, place it in a saucepan of boiling water and boil it quickly for twenty minutes; then move it to the side of the fire and let it simmer. Allow three hours for a turkey weighing nine or ten pounds, and about ten minutes for every additional pound. When cooked drain the bird, put it on a hot dish, and serve it with a sauceboatful of celery sauce.
A boiled turkey is a nearly forgotten preparation, and the cloth wrapping is the part that makes it work: it keeps the skin intact and the bird pale, and it keeps the stuffing from washing out of the seams. Skip it and you get a ragged carcass in cloudy water.
- The clothUse unbleached muslin or a plain cotton flour-sack towel, rinsed in cold water, wrung hard, then dredged with flour on the side touching the bird. The damp flour sets into a light seal. Tie it at both ends and around the middle with cotton twine so nothing loosens as the water moves.
- Vessel and waterYou need a stockpot or oval fish kettle large enough to hold the bird in plenty of water for three hours; top up with boiling water, never cold, as the level drops. "Move it to the side of the fire" is the old way of saying drop the heat to a bare simmer, with only occasional bubbles - the book gives no temperature. A hard boil for three hours shreds the breast.
- The saltOne and a half tablespoons of salt in this small quantity of stuffing is very heavy by current taste; it may have been intended to season the bird from within, since the cooking water is left unsalted. A teaspoon of fine salt is closer to modern seasoning; salt the cooking water instead if you want the flesh seasoned.
- QuantitiesTwo ounces of butter is 4 tablespoons. Four heaping tablespoons of crumbs is roughly a third of a cup, which is a token stuffing for a ten-pound bird rather than a full cavity's worth. Scale it up several times if you want enough to serve around.
- CeleryA head of celery in this period was probably a smaller, stringier bunch than today's. Use four or five inner ribs, strings pared off, chopped very fine; the leaves are worth including for flavor. Coarse celery in a boiled stuffing stays stubbornly crunchy.
- Doneness, not the clockThree hours for nine or ten pounds will overcook the breast by modern standards. Cook to temperature: 165F in the thickest part of the thigh and, because this is a stuffed bird, 165F at the center of the stuffing as well. Start checking well before the three hours are up.
- Celery sauceThe sauce is assumed rather than given: a white sauce or velouté made with the turkey's cooking liquid and milk or cream, with finely diced celery simmered soft in it. Strain out the trussing string and any stray flour from the cloth before you use the broth.
- YieldA nine- or ten-pound bird serves eight to ten. Boiled turkey carves best after fifteen minutes' rest on a hot dish, loosely covered, and it slices well cold the next day.
Boiling was a standard way to bring a large bird to the table in the nineteenth century, particularly in households and hotels where oven space was contested and a stockpot was always going; the pale, moist flesh it produced was considered genteel, suitable for invalids and for cold suppers, and the resulting broth became the sauce. The floured cloth is often said to derive from the technique of English puddings, and something like it appears in earlier books such as Eliza Acton's and Isabella Beeton's. Oscar Tschirky's Cook Book (1896) records the working repertoire of the Waldorf, where turkey with celery was a seasonal pairing in the plainest sense: both were at their best in late autumn, and celery in that era was a prestige vegetable, sold in tall glass vases on the table and used freely in stuffings and cream sauces. The boiled turkey lost ground thereafter, most likely because reliable gas and then electric ovens made roasting a whole bird routine in any kitchen.